Kiss Me Hard Before You Go
by Angelina Johnson
Summary: Set post 5x06. Sam gets back from New York and can't figure out why Ryder seems even sadder than usual.


**Disclaimer: **I don't own Glee. I'm not even really sure I like Glee anymore. So yeah, none of these characters, etc., belong to me. Don't sue me. Thanks. I suck at titles. This one comes from Lana Del Ray's lyrics in _Summertime Sadness_. I'm not even entirely sure it's relevant.

**Author's Note**: Okay, you guys know how much I love Ryley, but… the last episode made my heart hurt for poor Ryder. And I'm really scared that they're just using him as a stepping stone for getting Jarley back together, and that made me sad, and that made me want to write something to fix the problem… and I came up with this. I've never actually tried to write anything Syder before, so it probably majorly sucks, and I apologize for that in advance.

**Kiss Me Hard Before You Go**

It doesn't take long once he's back from New York for Sam to notice that something is wrong. So the next time he catches Ryder alone in the locker room, the blonde walks up to the younger boy, claps a hand on his shoulder, and asks, "What's got you sadder than usual, dude?"

Ryder just sort of glares at him, shaking Sam's hand off of his shoulder and heading back over to his locker to grab a t-shirt, but he doesn't answer the question. He doesn't tell him to go away, he doesn't blow him off, he just doesn't give a response. Sam's about to take his silence as a sign that Ryder wants him to go away, but finally the younger boy opens his mouth and says "Wanna come over and play some Call of Duty or something?"

The blonde instantly nods his head and wraps an arm easily around his shoulders, giving the brunette a squeeze as they headed out of the hallways side by side.

They sit in companionable silence in Sam's car, aside from the occasional singing along to an 80's song or the tapping of Ryder's fingers on the dashboard as he drums along to the music. It makes Sam smile – he's not sure how he hasn't noticed it before, but Ryder never stops moving. It reminds him of himself, the constant energy that he can barely contain, and he decides even before their hang out session has really started that they should do this more often.

He feels a little bit guilty, because if he's honest with himself, he should have reached out to the younger boy way sooner. He knows that the whole dyslexia thing is tough, but not even finding it out until he was a sophomore? That had to be pretty hard on Ryder. Still, better late than never, right? Something 's obviously bumming the dude out now, and Sam's going to do what he can to help.

Ryder pulls out a keychain out of his pocket and jams it into the keyhole, fumbling slightly to get the door open. Sam's not sure why he's so nervous, but he figures that he'll find out in time, because he's come this far already, and Ryder seems willing to let him in – both into the house, and in on whatever it is that's got him so down.

"My Playstation's in my room," Ryder says, breaking the silence as he drops his bag on to the floor and slides out of his shoes as well. He trots up the stairs towards the end of his hall, and Sam follows suit, unable to contain a grin as stops in the doorframe of Ryder's room, taking it all in.

It reminds him so much of his own room, from the super hero sheets on the unmade bed to the light saber casually lying on the dresser. Sam's eyes trail to the poster of The Beatles on the wall, to the Lego pirate ship assembled on his bookshelf, and finally to the copy of Avatar lying on the TV stand next to the TV player, box open and clearly recently watched.

"Dude, you are _awesome_," Sam says, still looking at the movie box, and Sam opens his mouth to start speaking in Na'vi, but Ryder's a step ahead of him, shaking his head and laughing.

"Man, I love the movie, but I'm still getting used to being able to properly read in English. Maybe you can help me work on the whole Na'vi thing once I'm caught up on schoolwork," Ryder teases as he hands him a blue playstation controller, taking a red one for himself and flopping down on the bed. Sam casts a glance over at the desk chair, considering sitting there for a second before unceremoniously plopping down on the edge of the bed next to Ryder.

It's not exactly a big bed, but Sam doesn't mind the coziness as Ryder hits start on multiplayer mode, and he can't help but think they make a good team as they easily make it through the first couple of campaigns. Aside from a few angry exclamations when the enemy got a shot in, though, they don't say much, and finally Sam pauses the game and turns to him and blurts out "So what's on your mind?"

Ryder frowns slightly and bites down on his lip, but Sam can tell that he's about to spill, because it's the same telltale sign he uses whenever he's about to confide something unpleasant in someone. Sam scoots back on Ryder's bead, leaning against the pillows that are propped up on the headboard, and pats the spot next to him until Ryder scoots back as well, and he's really not sure why he notices that their arms are touching as the brunette starts to talk.

"So, um… I went on a date with Marley," Ryder begins, and Sam just blurts out a reaction without thinking.

"Dude! That's awesome," Sam says, and he turns to meet Ryder's eyes, which don't quite wear the same smile as the rest of his face.

"That's not what the rest of the club thought when I asked her," he says ruefully, and Sam frowns. Sure, he knew that Marley and Jake hadn't been broken up for very long, but that had never stopped anyone in the Glee club before. In fact, he was pretty sure Finn and Quinn had started dating before she'd even bothered to break up with him, so what was the harm in Ryder going for the girl he wanted and making sure she knew how special he thought she was? Sam thought that was pretty awesome, and it sort of sounded like something he would have done, if he had been in the other boy's place.

"So what?" Sam replies easily, raising his eyebrows quizzically at Ryder. He had liked Marley for ages, hadn't he? Why was this bumming him out at all? "I mean, it's sort of obvious you've always been the better guy for her," he adds, offering his friend an encouraging smile that Ryder doesn't return. It's all so obvious to Sam: Ryder likes Marley. Ryder's a good guy. Marley just got hurt by a bad guy. Why wouldn't she want to be with someone as awesome as Ryder now? But he knows by now that things don't really work out that way, because he himself has been so unlucky in love, and he sees so much of himself in Ryder that he has a feeling he knows what comes next.

"Yeah, well, apparently Marley still doesn't think so," he retorts, twiddling his thumbs and frowning. He spills the whole story – how he had an amazing time on the date, how he got really excited and thought that she might actually like him back, how he had gone totally overboard only to have Marley tell him she still needed time for herself.

Sam's kind of speechless at the end, because honestly, he's had enough bad luck with girls to know this probably isn't going to turn out how Ryder wanted it to. He wants to offer him some awesome advice or something, but he doesn't know how to without giving him false hope, and he knows from experience how much that sucks. How much it's better to just wait for a girl who decides to put you first, because fighting for them and still not being good enough feels like shit.

"Dude, hug it out," Sam says instead, wrapping his arms around the younger boy and holding on to him maybe a bit longer than he would if this were anyone else. But he remembers how this feels, and he hates that Ryder is having to feel it, so he holds on until the other dude's ready to let go, and then they settle back against the pillows again, arms still brushing against each other.

Neither one of them is really feeling games after that, though, and it's like there's an unspoken agreement as they lock eyes that they're going to switch to movie watching now.

Sam uses his controller to exit out of Call of Duty and to switch the Playstation to DVD mode instead, restarting the Avatar disk that Ryder already has in there. He leans back against the pillows, Ryder close beside him on the tiny bed that's now host to two tall teenagers, and when Ryder dozes off and ends up leaning against his shoulder, Sam just lets it happen, eventually nodding off as well, his own head tilted against the younger boy's, his nose tickled slightly by the floppy brown hair that he doesn't even realize he nuzzles against in his sleep.

They wake up a couple of hours later and neither says a word. Instead, Ryder grabs his cell phone off the bedside table, arches an eyebrow at Sam, and says "Pizza?"

It's well past midnight by the time Sam leaves, and by the next day at noon, they've already made plans to do the same thing all over again on Saturday night.

The week is awkward at best in Glee club. Ryder keeps making hopeful faces in Marley's direction, but by Friday, Jake's got his arm around her again, and he's wearing a smirk that Sam feels the urge to punch right off of his face. Marley has the decency to duck her head in shame as she walks past Sam and Ryder in the hallways, but Sam's blood is still boiling. He's always liked Ryder, but he's not sure why in the past week he's suddenly become so protective of the other boy.

By the time Sam looks over at his friend, though, Ryder's done his best to wipe the crestfallen look off of his face, and he just gives a sad shrug. Sam opens his mouth to say something, anything, about how much the situation sucks, about how much Ryder deserves better than to be jerked around like this all for the sake of making Jake jealous, but Ryder cuts him off, and just asks, "Halo?" Sam shuts his mouth and claps his hand on Ryder's shoulder, steering him in the direction of his car, looking forward to a bro night even if the circumstances for it sucked.

Sam thinks nothing of the routine that they fall into after that; he doesn't even realize that he's spending every Friday and Saturday night alone with Ryder as his senior year comes to a close. Ryder apparently does, though, because one night he turns to him and says, "I thought you were supposed to be dating that nurse lady, dude. How come you're never out with her?"

Sam blushes slightly at the realization that he's pretty much forgotten about Penny since she left McKinley. He hasn't called, he hasn't texted, he hasn't even added her as a friend on Facebook. On the other hand, his inbox is full of texts from the guy who was currently handing it to him at New Super Mario Bros. His outgoing calls every night were to Ryder, to test out his newest impression or to talk about an idea he has for Nationals. He thinks nothing of the fact that he hangs up every night with a smile on his face, because that's how friends are supposed to make you feel, right?

And it's totally normal that he likes seeing his new best bro better than any kind-of-crazy nurse that he had been chasing after anyway.

It's the night after Sam's graduation, and there's a party for all of the New Directions members, past and present. And there's a weird feeling in the pit of Sam's stomach when he realizes that he's part of that past now, that he's one of the people moving on, but that Ryder's still part of the present. That Ryder's going to walk in to that choir room every day next year, and sit there with Jake and Marley and put a smile on his face and pretend that they've never hurt him, because that's the kind of guy he is.

And that's the kind of guy Sam is too, and it's so hard to find people who understand him. So hard to find other guys that always seem to be on the same page as he is, that just seem to totally and completely get him. And maybe it's this feeling that's clawing at his chest all night, that aches every time he looks over at the guy he's grown to consider his best friend, that causes him to act the way he does. Maybe that's the reason that he grabs Ryder the second they're alone together in Blaine's kitchen and pulls the other boy flush against him.

He's not sure if he intended for it to be a bro-hug or not, but with the alcohol and the way that Ryder's eyes widen as Sam feels his own breath hitch, it turns into more. He's not sure if he initiated it or if Ryder did or if they both went for it at once, but their lips crash against each other, and it only takes a split second for Sam to wonder if this is why his relationships with girls have never worked out.

He's so caught up in how good it feels that he doesn't even stop to think about the fact that he's kissing a _guy_ for the first time ever until Ryder pulls away slightly, and Sam's eyes slam open in panic. Has he freaked him out? Was that the wrong thing to do? Has he totally just crossed a line?

Ryder pins Sam against the wall and kisses him again.

The rest of the summer goes by way too fast, and Sam knows it's probably not a good idea that he's spending all of his free time with someone that he's about to leave behind when he heads for New York. But that doesn't stop Sam; by day he's a life guard at the Lima pool, and by night he's the dude that can't seem to keep his hands off of his best friend.

They don't talk about what happened at Blaine's party, not really, but that doesn't stop them from repeating it over and over. It's gotten to the point where they barely make it through the door frame of each other's bedrooms before they're on top of each other, and Sam's not sure what this means. Other than the excessive amounts of making out, their relationship is pretty much the same, and he doesn't _think_ they're boyfriends or anything like that, but he's afraid to ask.

Sam's mostly saving his money for when he heads to New York, but that doesn't stop him from wanting to take Ryder out a few times – his treat. He tells himself it's not a date, that he's just helping out a dude who doesn't have a summer job because he's taking summer school classes to make up for the damage he did to his GPA before he got his dyslexia diagnosed, but deep down he knows that's a lie. Especially when he ends holding Ryder's hand under the table during dinner, because holy shit, when did he start wanting to do stuff like that?

It _feels_ like a date to him, even if he doesn't say it out loud, so it doesn't surprise him when their lips find each other before they're even back in Sam's car. Sam hears someone clear his throat behind them, and he reluctantly peels himself off of Ryder to see Jake and Marley staring at them. Ryder quickly slides his hands off of Sam's hips and jams them into his pockets, and Sam just blushes slightly. Jake rolls his eyes at them and makes some comment to the effect of "at least I don't have to worry about you wanting my girlfriend anymore," and Marley's got this amused twinkle in her eyes as she offers them a soft wave and walks away.

Sam assumes that this will be the end – that now that they've been seen, Ryder will finally have that moment of panic he's been expecting from him, and he'll call the whole thing – whatever this was – off. Instead, the brunette's fingers rake through Sam's hair and he pulls his face back towards his to pick up right where they left off.

Ryder drives him to the airport the morning that he leaves for New York, and it's not emotional or anything. They sneak in a few kisses while Blaine's in his house grabbing some more luggage – Ryder breaks a kiss just long enough to joke that their friend probably has an entire suitcase devoted to his bowties – but they still don't say a word about what it is they are or what they expect to happen once Sam leaves.

The hug goodbye, though, makes Sam feel a little unsettled. He holds on for longer than he should, and Blaine narrows his eyes at the way that Sam's clutching on to the younger boy as the car idles in the unloading lane, but finally they separate, and Sam checks his luggage and departs to start the next chapter of his life.

A part of him wants to run back out of the airport, to chase after Ryder and tell him he doesn't want this to end here, with their tentative goodbye, but he doesn't. He just leaves it alone, trying to convince himself that it's better this way, to go in to the next phase of things unattached.

He regrets it the second he opens the door to the apartment he's going to be sharing with Kurt and Blaine and Santana and Rachel. Not being in New York – he couldn't be more excited about that. Not the living arrangements, either ; this apartment is pretty freaking huge, and he still has no idea how Kurt and Rachel managed to land this place.

No, it's that the second he sees Kurt and Blaine embrace, he regrets leaving things so uncertain with Ryder. He regrets not asking what they were. He regrets not making sure they were more than just friends. It suddenly flashes through his mind that Ryder was free to go out with anyone he wanted, free to date anyone he wanted, free to kiss anyone he wanted…

Sam chews on the inside of his cheek and sets to work unpacking his area of the loft, trying to ignore the churning feeling in his stomach as he fights back mental pictures of seeing Marley and Ryder kiss last year before Grease.

He goes to bed as soon as he's unpacked, not really in the mood to talk to anyone else, not able to shake the thought of Ryder back in Ohio without him as he drifted off into a fitful sleep.

He misses Ryder more than he ever expected to, but that doesn't stop him from enjoying life in New York. He settles in well, doing some modeling photoshoots for Bichette even though he never did lose those 10 pounds, spending some time hanging out at a NYADA bar or two with Kurt and Rachel and Blaine and occasionally Santana. He gets a job on the side as a singing waiter, because hell, the rest of his roommates already work there, so why not?

He makes some friends, too. Rachel introduces him to a guy from NYADA that he can jam with, and he and Blaine hang out at an arcade sometimes where they get acquainted with some other regulars. He enjoys it, he really does, but that doesn't stop him from thinking 'Ryder would like this' or 'I can't wait to tell Ryder about that' whenever he's trying something new.

He needn't have worried about their goodbye too much, though, because they still talk all the time. His inbox is still filled with texts from the brunette, his call log is filled with random two or three minute exchanges between the two whenever some interesting thought pops into their head to share, and they even make a point to Skype a couple of times a week. It's nearly the end of October, and Sam expects Ryder to be sick of him by now, but the constant stream of communication sort of makes Sam think he's not.

"So… you talk to Ryder a lot, huh?" Rachel asks one night when Sam's hanging up from a Skype call, tucking her legs up on the couch as she slides into the seat next to him. She's back from a long day of Funny Girl rehearsals, and he doesn't miss the significant look she gives him as he tries to wipe the goofy grin off of his face.

He shrugs, about to offer some lame explanation about how Ryder's his best friend – which wouldn't be a lie – but he stops himself, biting his lip before admitting for the first time out loud, "I like him a lot."

Rachel bounces in her seat and flails her arms with excitement, and Sam blushes slightly as he realizes what a relief it is to admit it to someone. Blaine passes through the living room at just the right time, and he winks at Sam, making it clear he's heard everything and making it even clearer that he's been expecting this for a while.

Seeing that Rachel and Blaine are even more on board with the idea of him and Ryder being more than friends than Jake and Marley were, Sam could kick himself for not having done something about it sooner. He doesn't want the first time they acknowledge what was going on between them to be over the phone, though, so he vows to wait until he's home for Thanksgiving, and then he'll show the younger boy how he really feels.

It never dawns on him that that might be too late.

The second week of November rolls in, and even with how caught up Sam's been in the fact that he gets to see Ryder in three weeks, he still notices that the other boy has been… vague, lately. Distant. He doesn't understand why, and he tries to fight down the panic that rises in his throat when Ryder avoids answering questions, or when he has to hang up all too quickly for Sam's liking. It's driving him crazy, though, and he doesn't understand what's going on until it clicks that homecoming's coming up at McKinley. This year there's a dance, and a dance means a date.

Sam runs twice as far as he normally does that evening, burning himself into exhaustion to avoid thinking about it.

Marley's the one who calls him, of all people. His first instinct is to think that something bad has happened to Ryder, because yeah, Sam and Marley have always gotten along, but they've never been close. Especially not after she got back together with Jake, because okay, he's not complaining about how that turned out for him, but it still doesn't sit right with him, how she treated Ryder.

When her first words aren't hello but are instead "You're an idiot," Sam's actually relieved. Ryder didn't get into a car accident or get diagnosed with cancer or anything like that; whatever Marley's calling about has to do with something Sam's messed up. The relief quickly ebbs into confusion, though, and he says "Hello to you too, Marley," before waiting for her to elaborate.

"Seriously, Sam, if I were there in person, I would probably smack you, and that's saying a lot coming from me," she says, and he can hear annoyance in her voice. It's true, those are fighting words coming from the normally sweet Marley Rose, but he doesn't respond to her banter, because he just wants to know what's going on.

"You left without telling him how you felt about him?" she demands, and Sam's jaw drops, because wow, was he that transparent? Seriously, Jake and Marley had only caught him with Ryder that one time, and okay, he had been sort of slow to pull away from the brunette even with their two friends staring at them, but was that really such a dead giveaway that he had developed more-than-friendly feelings towards Ryder? Why did it seem like he had been the last one to get the memo about what he was feeling for his friend?

Sam's torn between saying a lot of things, but he ends up saying, "I thought he knew."

"If he knew he wouldn't be acting like a total weirdo about the fact that people expect him to have a date when he doesn't want one," Marley says, and Sam can visualize her eyes rolling as she tells him this. He's been so scared to upset the unspoken agreement that they seemed to have been operating on, but it's clear that whatever's going on in Ryder's head lately means that Sam needs to stop operating by that rule, and fast.

A part of him still worries that Ryder doesn't _want _more from him. That he doesn't want to date Sam – that to Ryder they're just bros that make out. A lot. Deep down, though, Sam knows it's not true, because that's not the kind of guy Ryder is. That's not the kind of guy he is, either. They're so similar in how they look at things that Sam just took it for granted that when he realized how much he needed Ryder, Ryder would just _know_ that Sam felt the same way about them.

If their roles were reversed, the peer pressure about the dance would have been enough to get him panicking and worrying about where he stood with Ryder. Sam would want to be able to tell people what was going on. He would want to be proud to be with him, and he'd tell people to back off because he belongs to somebody else.

And Ryder can't do that because Sam was so, so stupid. Or at least, that's how he thinks of himself as he gets Marley to agree to keep Ryder from getting a date and he throws some clothes into a bag. He doesn't really have the money for a flight, so he decides to catch a bus home, to which Kurt makes a disgusted face and Santana warns him to not be afraid to "go all Lima Heights" on anyone who tries to give him trouble.

It takes 14 hours by bus, and Sam spends the entire time staring out the window at the night sky, stomach churning as he wonders if he's doing the right thing. If this is going to be enough, or if this is too little too late. If Ryder's been questioning him ever since he left – or worse, ever since this whole thing started – or if this is just a recent development.

There are too many questions in Sam's head, and by the time he pulls up at the bus station around lunch time the next day, he doesn't have a whole lot of time to get ready. He didn't get a chance to call Ryder from the bus last night because he didn't want to give away his surprise – or to kill his cell battery, after that warning from Santana – but it stings a little to see that he doesn't have any missed calls from him anyway. Sam had texted him to see how his football game had gone, but there was no response to that, either.

He starts to worry that this was a bad idea when Jake and Marley drive up and usher him into a car, driving him back to Jake's to shower off the scent of bus and the lone bag of Cheetos that he ate during his journey.

It's clear by the look on Ryder's face when he shows up in a suit to meet Jake and Marley at Breadstix that the couple had managed to keep Sam's impromptu visit a surprise. It's even clearer that it's a good surprise when Ryder doesn't even hesitate to pull him into a giant hug, uncontrollable grin on his face.

Sam loves that about him; the fact that he doesn't stop to be awkward, he just wears his emotions on his sleeves. He loves even more the fact that those emotions seem to be matching up perfectly with his own, and he's really, really glad he didn't actually have to wait three more weeks to see him.

They're too busy catching up at dinner to get to the serious things; it amazes Sam how much they have to talk about just from a few days of playing it cool. They're still deep in a heated debate about Assassin's Creed Black Flag, which Ryder finally got after receiving an A on some big midterm project, when they climb into Ryder's car. It takes until they're halfway to McKinley for the conversation to die out, and Sam sits with his hands wrung in his lap, chewing on the inside of his cheek.

Ryder turns to him with a slight frown and says, "You're not playing air guitar," and Sam knows the jig is up. He can't avoid the conversation anymore. He can't keep pretending that things are just going to fall into place without communicating, because he lives 600 miles away from Ryder now instead of 6, and he has to say something. But by the time they're in the parking lot, Sam still hasn't figured out the right words for what he wants to ask, and Ryder looks at him expectantly as he turns off the ignition of the car.

"Are we – " Sam begins to ask, tilting his head to the side and pausing to take in a deep breath. As he hesitates, Ryder shuffles in his seat to pull out his wallet. Sam watches curiously, but Ryder's taking his time finding whatever it is he's searching for, so the blonde reformulates his question.

"Do you want us to be…" he starts, trailing off again as Ryder finally pulls something out of his wallet and tosses it in to Sam's lap. It's a picture of the two of them – four pictures, to be more specific – taken over the summer in one of those dumb movie theater photo booths. The first picture they're just smiling; in the second, they're making weird monster faces. In the third, they're sticking their tongues out at each other, but by the fourth they're kissing, because it was a tiny space, and Ryder's hot, okay? It's sometimes hard for Sam to control himself when he's around him.

"Yeah, I do," Ryder says, kind of shyly, and Sam wonders if he's nervous because he's never wanted to date a guy before or if it's just because Marley burned him so many times before Sam came along to help pick up the pieces.

"Me too," Sam admits, unbuckling his seatbelt and doing his best to give Ryder another hug over the console of the car. It's awkward and hard to maneuver, but they try anyway, and eventually Sam just gives up on the hug and kisses him. It's somehow the same intoxicating kiss he remembers rolled up with a totally new feeling that he attributes to finally knowing Ryder's _his_, and Sam's pretty sure he could kiss his boyfriend forever, because that's what they are now, and it's more than a little bit awesome, even if it's different than what either one of them probably ever expected.

The only reason they even go in to the dance at all is because Ryder's supposed to perform with the Glee club, and Sam laughs at the fact that some things never change. Besides, he's neither complaining about the fact that Ryder wants to show Sam off to his old schoolmates or the fact that he gets to see what ridiculous dance moves the younger boy's come up with this time.

As soon as Ryder's done performing his last song for Glee club, though, he tugs on Sam's hand and drags him in the direction of the gymnasium doors. They find their way back to Ryder's, where they turn Avatar on just like that first afternoon they spent here, bonding on Ryder's too small bed. This time, though, they don't go in to it with any intention of paying attention. By the end they're a tangled mess of limbs, but he's pretty sure it's the most comfortable night's sleep he's ever had.

When Sam's bus pulls back in to New York late the next night, there's a spring in his step that wasn't there before he left, and all four of his roommates give him knowing looks. He just throws a pillow at them and grins, disappearing into his personal space to give his boyfriend a call and let him know he made it home safe.


End file.
